Declan McCullagh and prosecutions

Seth Finkelstein sethf at MIT.EDU
Tue Apr 3 13:35:50 PDT 2001


>At 11:18 PM 4/2/2001 -0400, Seth Finkelstein wrote:
>>      You appear to think I'm saying "Hey everyone, Declan's a
>>      collaborator". No. Rather, I'm asking "Why doesn't Declan get
>>      flamingly denounced as a collaborator?". Not because I want
>>      to imply you should be. Rather, because I'm trying to
>>      understand why it isn't happening.

> James A. Donald wrote:
> Probably because his testimony is not very exciting, and making him
> testify seems more like an act of harassment against him, than
> anything very useful to the prosecution.

	I'm fascinated that you view it that way. Isn't it clear why
his testimony is useful to the prosecution? It's a key part of the
Federal Complaint. I was going to ask if you think the prosecution got
a subpoena signed by the Attorney General himself just for giggles, but
that's actually been answered. It's not "exciting" testimony, but then
a lot of trials are very boring ("Where were you on the night of the
12th?" "I was by myself", etc. etc.).

	Once the prosecution wants him to testify, then exactly
because we have functioning Constitutional due-process rights,
generally that testimony has to be in open court. And the defense gets
a chance to confront the accuser. That's just how it works. Now, the
defense could agree not to oppose Declan's testimony, but that would
be foolish of them (in my view).

	Again. people seem to somehow have acquired the idea that the
*prosecution* is fishing for something. NO. Their evidence is
specified already. They want Declan in and out of court as fast as
possible, and wouldn't have him in court at all if they could avoid
it. It's exactly the fact that they can't avoid having him in court
which is causing the headache. Because the Sixth Amendment says a
defendant has certain rights, and those are not being waived here.

	Again, that is just basic stuff as to how the system
functions. If we didn't have Sixth Amendment protections in it, none
of this would be happening!

__
Seth Finkelstein  Consulting Programmer  sethf at mit.edu  http://sethf.com





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